Trump administration asks Supreme Court to revive Big Bend border wall construction

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to lift a federal judge's order halting construction of a border wall across roughly 500 miles of West Texas, including stretches that cut through Big Bend National Park, setting up a fast-moving fight over how far a 1996 waiver law lets the government bypass environmental and land-use rules.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the emergency application directly with the justices, bypassing the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The filing, docketed as No. 26A560 and captioned Mullin v. Friends of the Ruidosa Church, asks the court to stay a preliminary injunction issued Oct. 2 by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone of the Western District of Texas and, ultimately, to summarily reverse it. The application was submitted to Justice Samuel Alito and docketed late Wednesday.

Sauer called Cardone's order "baseless" and "unprecedented," arguing that the Big Bend Sector is "an area of high illegal entry" and that U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended more than 89,000 people attempting illegal entry there between 2021 and 2025. He argued the district court lacked authority to hear the case at all, because the statute underlying the dispute limits judicial review to constitutional claims, not disputes over whether an official exceeded statutory authority.

A quarter of the border, on hold

Cardone's injunction, which remains in effect while the Supreme Court considers the application, bars the Department of Homeland Security from further construction or "ground disturbing activities" within the Big Bend Sector, an area the government's own filings describe as encompassing 77 Texas counties and nearly a quarter of the U.S.-Mexico border. The order covers land within Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, and private and state land along the Rio Grande.

At issue are three waivers of federal law that recent Homeland Security secretaries issued under Section 102(c) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, as amended by the 2005 REAL ID Act. That provision lets the secretary waive legal requirements to speed border barrier and road construction, and it channels nearly all legal challenges through a narrow path: lawsuits must be filed within 60 days in federal district court, can raise only constitutional claims, and any appeal goes directly to the Supreme Court rather than through a circuit court — which is why Sauer's application landed with the justices rather than the 5th Circuit.

Then-Secretary Kristi Noem signed the initial waiver determination, published Feb. 17, which cited the 89,000 apprehensions figure Sauer later repeated to the Supreme Court. Her successor, Markwayne Mullin, amended it in July to add more waived requirements, and plaintiffs say the combined waivers set aside dozens of federal environmental, cultural-preservation and land-management statutes, including provisions tied to the 1944 act that created Big Bend National Park. Mullin is listed as the lead applicant in the Supreme Court filing.

Cardone found in her Oct. 14 written opinion that the challengers were likely to prevail on a "major questions doctrine" claim — the idea that courts should doubt Congress delegated unusually sweeping authority to an agency unless it said so clearly. She noted that the Big Bend Sector has one of the lowest rates of illegal border crossings on the entire southern border, undercutting the government's "high illegal entry" justification for invoking the waiver power there.

"The Court finds that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of at least one of the claims in suit," Cardone wrote.

Landowners, a river guide and a historic church

The suit, filed in April, was brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the nonprofit Friends of the Ruidosa Church — which is working to preserve a century-old adobe church in Presidio County — and a Big Bend river guide and landowner. Witnesses at the injunction hearing described effects on wildlife corridors, river access and ranching operations along the border; the government called no witnesses of its own, according to court reporting on the hearing.

Opposition to wall construction in the remote region has drawn ranchers, business owners and conservationists who do not always align politically. Big Bend National Park drew more than 560,000 visitors in 2025 and is prized for dark night skies, canyon hiking and river access along the Rio Grande.

When Cardone issued her initial order, Laiken Jordahl of the Center for Biological Diversity described it as a "total victory," saying bulldozers would be sent packing until the judge rules on the underlying merits of the case. Customs and Border Protection has said it stands by its legal authority to secure the border and is working with the Justice Department on next steps.

What's next

The respondents are expected to file a response to the emergency application in the coming days; the Supreme Court has set no public deadline for its own ruling, and Cardone's injunction stays in place unless and until the justices act. Because Congress limited review of these waiver disputes to the Supreme Court, there is no intermediate appellate ruling for either side to point to, leaving the outcome to turn largely on how the justices read the scope of the 1996 waiver authority and the major questions doctrine the Court has invoked in other recent challenges to agency power.

The fight over Big Bend is one of several pending disputes over the administration's border wall plans; a different judge in the same Texas district declined to block a related levee-area project on Oct. 1. Congress approved roughly $46 billion for border wall and related infrastructure construction last year, and the administration has said it intends to complete a wall of steel bollards, vehicle barriers and surveillance technology along most of the nearly 2,000-mile southern border, a goal that would require resolving the Big Bend litigation one way or another.